A few weeks ago, I read Robert Heinlein's alternately entertaining and appalling classic of right-wing wish-fulfilliment, "Starship Troopers." One detail particularly struck me about the idealized military he posits, CAP troopers who "drop" onto planets for battles in a thinly science-fictionalized version of what real life paratroopers do. In keeping with the delicate balance of libertarian-individualist and authoritarian-militarist elements in Heinlein's worldview, he mentions that CAP troopers can opt out at any time, even the minute before a drop, and simply be paid off, never have an opportunity to re-join the military and be deprived of the usual privileges according to veterans later on.

This leads me to the following thought, an effort on this the third anniversary of the invasion or Iraq, to reach a mutually agreeable compromise with the ever-declining number of people who continue to defend the justice and/or sanity of American involvement there:

According to the polls, 72% of the U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq disagree with the war. (In possibly related news, military recruitment and re-enlistment have both dropped dramatically.) So, why don't we let that 72% go home without bringing charges against them for desertion, the 28% who support the war or are undecided can stay, and the missing slots can be filled by Young Republicans and other people of the right age range who support U.S. involvement in Iraq, and have doubtless only refrained from joining up until now because they didn't think that Uncle Sam needed them.

If for some reason (and I can't imagine why this would be) we can't actually find enough young conservative types who are willing to put their upwardly-mobile young bodies on the line for their convictions to fill the missing slots, then we'll just have to withdraw.

Doesn't that sound fair and reasonable?